You’ve probably heard by now (especially if you visit RedState several times a day), but President Joe Biden, who is quadruple vaxxed and double masked, has contracted COVID-19.
Contrary to his past claims that we are in a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” and that those who have the vaccine won’t get infected, the president has now joined the great unwashed masses. Biden also broke CDC guidelines during a photo-op after finding out he’s been infected, which was just a “chef’s kiss” moment.
The real fireworks happened during Thursday’s press briefing, though. As RedState reported (see here and here), the White House comms team was none too happy about having to answer basic questions on the president’s illness. When reporters pressed for an explanation of where Biden was infected, Karine Jean-Pierre snapped, asserting “I don’t think that matters.” That response came after a year-and- a-half of the administration pretending to care about contact tracing.
At another point, in a clip RedState hadn’t previously reported on, Karine-Jean Pierre got visibly upset with a reporter for accusing the White House of not being transparent.
You have to love the fact that Jean-Pierre found a way to bring Donald Trump into the conversation. That man continues to live rent-free in the minds of everyone in the Biden administration. What a weak, desperate attempt at deflection, believing that if she just says the name “Trump” enough times, she’ll be able to fend off the tough questions being posed to her. She’s also wrong, in that the current Biden administration approach is far less transparent than the approach the Trump administration took.
But I digress. She first snarks that “we” haven’t seen the president because “we are following CDC guidance.” That’s not true, though. As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, Biden and his staff broke CDC guidance earlier on Thursday to take pictures of him supposedly “doing great.” He was not wearing a mask as required, and he was not isolating himself, given that a photographer had to have been in the room with him.
Here’s the broader point: This is a White House that is running scared. A comms department that is confident in what they are saying doesn’t act like this. I’ve honestly never witnessed a comms shop that is this incapable and amateurish, unable to handle even the smallest off-script moments. That Karine Jean-Pierre is in charge is a testament to just how woefully unqualified she is for her job.
Further, I think she and others in the administration are genuinely worried that the president might not actually be “doing great.” We are talking about a feeble, senile old man who appears to have trouble walking and processing things at times. Odds are, he recovers, but there are no guarantees, and this White House appears terrified to just be honest with the press and the American people about what is going on.
None of this is going to instill confidence in Biden’s ability to continue to lead the nation. Even in the “doing great” picture that I linked above, he appears comically out of it and disheveled. The administration simply doesn’t have any good answers when it comes to the president’s health, whether it’s related to COVID or his general decline. That’s only going to become more of a problem going forward.